Revised Ranger update

[Pauln6]

So to summarise, giving the companion half proficiency bonus to untrained saves, uncanny dodge at level 7, and allowing it to share the benefits of both Hunter's Mark and the ranger's Healing Surges might be enough? I'd bung in Revivify Beast as a class feature (at level 3?).

I suppose there's even scope for giving beasts battlemaster style manoeuvres depending on their type?

 

[pming]

Hiya.

WARNING! RANT BELOW!!

Well, frak them.

The PHB Beastmaster is useless and a pet without its own action is shíte.

Only if you DM is a complete, total and utter moron.

The BIGGEST (and pretty much the only) complaint people have about the Beastmaster is DM's that don't understand that something that is alive...tends to want to stay alive. Something that has a child, mother, or father...tends to want to protect them. Something that has feelings of loyalty and devotion...tends to want to see the person of their loyalty and devotion happy.

A Beastmasters pet? Yeah, SURPRISE! It's all of those, but turned up to 11. And smarter. And more skilled. And attuned to it's master on a magical level.

Any DM who says "Yeah, you can buy a trained war dog. It will fight for you and guard and stuff"...and then when the party is attacked by goblins the PC says "I tell Fido to sic 'em! Then I wade in to combat with my axe!"...and has Fido trying to kill goblins as the PC swings away? Good for that DM. That's what a trained animal does; it attacks (or whatever) until the task is finished. It doesn't run up to the bad guy, snap at him....and then sit down.

Any DM who says "Yeah, you have a Beastmaster war dog. It will stand there and DO ABSOLUTELY FREAKING NOTHING, until you tell it to do something"... and then when the party is attacked by goblins the PC says "I tell Fido to sic 'em! Then I wade into combat with my axe!" ...and has Fido ATTACK ONE GOBLIN ONE TIME...AND THEN SIT THERE DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHILE IT GETS STABBED BY A GOBLIN? That is a complete and total moron of a DM.

Any DM who says "Fido? No, he's still back sitting on the porch of the Yellow Duck Inn, about 50 miles back. When you left you didn't tell him to come...perform the Move action. Even if you did, when you all ran away from the grey ooze, when you thought Fido was with you, you didn't tell me you told him to Dash, so he would have been caught and eaten by the ooze. Because he was walking and you guys were running....and you didn't tell him to Attack, so he would have just kept walking until the ooze devoured him".

What? Does that sound, I don't know...completely, totally and utterly MORONIC!? Yeah...thought so...

THAT is my problem. NOT with the Beastmaster, but by how so many so-called "DM's" out there take something that is NOT written (e.g., a war dog fights when you tell it to and doesn't stop until it's foes are dead or you tell it to stop, that would be expected; if you buy a new pair of scissors from the tradesman, you expect them to be sharp and do the job), and uses his/her brain....but the SECOND something is written saying "The Ranger uses an action to command the pet", said "DM" all of a sudden decides "Oh, I guess Beastmaster pets are just mindless automatons who interpret commands literally and will do nothing unless told to".

THAT is the "problem" with Beastmaster. It's not the class. It's the DM. And the players that somehow think this makes sense and dismisses all logic and reasoning. A Beastmaster fighting goblins can point at one and say "Sic 'em Fido!", and then wade into combat. Fido should then continue, round after round, to try and kill the goblin. If another goblin attacks him during this, Fido would keep trying to kill his original target. After he does, if the other goblin is still attacking him, Fido would naturally defend himself and try and kill that goblin. Then would continue until no goblin was attacking him. Then Fido would return to the Beastmaster. Where the Beastmaster can choose another target or command Fido to do something else...and THIS would take an Action.

Frak THEM. They are the ones giving Beastmaster rangers a bad rap. I'm 100% behind Jeremy on this one (something I rarely am).

Ok. ...phew... I'm done. Got that out of my system. I don't think I will ever comment about Beastmasters again other than with perhaps a single word.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[TheCosmicKid]

In my games, the halfling beastmaster with a wolf pet worked perfectly fine and was probably one of the highest damaging characters, including the paladin. Note, we were using the revised beastmaster from the UA. Had zero problems with it. I'm again, frankly baffled why people are having such issues with it.

The UA beastmaster fixed the wonky action and advancement issues of the PHB version. That's what most people were most annoyed by. And the one thing that really needs to be fixed. Every other problem is either exaggerated (DPR) or a matter of taste (favored enemy, natural explorer, hunter's mark, spellcasting, etc.). And I'm saying this as someone who's got very different tastes and has totally rewritten the class. More than once.

 

[DeanP]

"Over the past year, you’ve seen us try a number of
new approaches to the ranger, all aimed at
addressing the class’s high levels of player
dissatisfaction and its ranking as D&D’s weakest
class by a significant margin.
Those two factors combined to put us on the
path to this revision. We have classes that rate as
weak, but which nonetheless have high levels of
player satisfaction. That tells us people playing
those classes are happy with how their characters’
abilities work and with their own experience at the
table, even if those classes aren’t the strongest.
After all, not every class can rank at the top.
Likewise, most issues we see with classes are
confined to specific abilities that don’t play a big
role in determining whether players like the class
as a whole. In other words, no class is perfect, but
each is close enough to the mark in its own way
that players are happy."


This is what they wrote in the preamble of the UA: Ranger Revised. So which it is true? What was written then or the more recent tweet?

 

[ad_hoc]

This is what they wrote in the preamble of the UA: Ranger Revised. So which it is true? What was written then or the more recent tweet?

Both can be true.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

THAT is my problem. NOT with the Beastmaster, but by how so many so-called "DM's" out there take something that is NOT written (e.g., a war dog fights when you tell it to and doesn't stop until it's foes are dead or you tell it to stop, that would be expected; if you buy a new pair of scissors from the tradesman, you expect them to be sharp and do the job), and uses his/her brain....but the SECOND something is written saying "The Ranger uses an action to command the pet", said "DM" all of a sudden decides "Oh, I guess Beastmaster pets are just mindless automatons who interpret commands literally and will do nothing unless told to".

PHB, p. 93, second column, fifth paragraph, second sentence: "It takes its turn on your initiative, though it doesn't take an action unless you command it to."

So this hypothetical "complete, utter, and total moron" DM knows the rules of the game they're supposed to be adjudicating. And you did not.

But now that you do, does it give you cause to reconsider your opinion that "It's not the class"?

 

[Pauln6]

I've always assumed it functions more like Spiritual Weapon. Once commanded to attack a particular target using the ranger's action, it continues to do so until that target is dead or until something happens to it e.g. it is bloodied and its instincts take over and it's likely to flee. At that point, the Ranger has to decide whether to take another action to command it to overcome its fear or get back in there. It's bonkers and unnatural to suggest it requires a rinse and repeat command every round. I expect the errata will clarify this.

Other actions might be different though. If commanded to retrieve a weapon from an enemy that one of your allies has just disarmed, it isn't going to keep doing that.

 

[CapnZapp]

This is what they wrote in the preamble of the UA: Ranger Revised. So which it is true? What was written then or the more recent tweet?

Lesson for you: don't mindlessly copy paste...

 

[GlassJaw]

Add me to the list that's not a fan of this tweet. Regardless of your feelings on the revised ranger, it was condescending and snooty. And if there are no plans to finished the revised ranger, he could have certainly communicated that in a better way. It's almost as if he was insulted to even have to answer the question.

Now that that's out of the way, I don't get his answer. Do they lack so much bandwidth that they can't continue to tweak the ranger - or any other class for that matter - and put out UA articles? Even if nothing is AL legal, it at least gives great insight into the design process and offers more player options. It also keeps people who are asking for changes happy.

It also feels like a hard shift in their philosophy. They seemed to be very open-minded about what they were offering in the UA articles. But now this tweet suddenly feels like a shift in that philosophy. I certainly hope that isn't the case.

 

[Laurefindel]

...Regardless of your feelings on the revised ranger, it was condescending and snooty. And if there are no plans to finished the revised ranger, he could have certainly communicated that in a better way. It's almost as if he was insulted to even have to answer the question...

This.

I would have been ok with something like "we stand by our original design in being the best solution for the beastmaster". But telling players to buy a dog for their characters or ask their DM for a pet while they designed a subclass especially for that purpose is like saying "yeah, we know there's the eldritch knight but if you want to cast spells as a fighter, just ask your DM".

To be honest, i'm actually quite ok with the "ask your DM to play something you want" part, at least in principle. But if this was the way to handle the animal companion, I wish they had been upfront about it from the get go. This is only frustrating because they seemed to genuinely care about the player's perceived issue on the beastmaster at first, and actively worked toward an official alternative in (what I considered) good faith.

To abandon the project is one thing, but to be snarky about it makes it upsetting. But I don't know, the internet is a nasty place sometimes and fans are not always respectful. Actually snooty-ness and condescension often seem to be the norm rather than the exception. Perhaps I'd become bitter and condescending too in their place...